There's someone in the house

Abstract:

'There’s someone in the house…' was commissioned by the 'site/sight:source/resource' symposium, University of Exeter, and presented at Exeter Phoenix, supported by a production grant of £1,250. The work being realised within the context of Brookes' ongoing collaboration with Mike Pearson, and presented under the umbrella of their performance collective 'Pearson/Brookes'. 'There’s someone in the house…' was presented within the studio of the Phoenix Arts Centre, and performed through a number of adjacent spaces within the same building. Performers moved through the building creating short performance sequences, and generating video recordings and Polaroid photographs documenting fragments of their actions, which were constantly and punctually returned to the central studio space. Here they were replayed in juxtaposition with texts read from the large specifically constructed table that formed the central scenic emplacement for the standing audience, and that effectively constituted a map and time-line for the unfolding, fragmented narrative. Research questions included: In what ways can live and mediated elements be drawn together effectively in performance? How might scenic design ensure dramatic coherence through the provision of an organising structure – in this instance a gridded table - within which fragmentary, accumulating material can be placed? How might the dramaturgy of site-specific performance be constituted as a time-line, as a ‘schedule to be met’ as much as ‘places to be’?